Sep 30, 2013

Disability Trust Fund Doing Better Than Forecast

The Office of Chief Actuary has released data on Disability Trust Fund operations through August 2013. As of the end of August, the Disability Trust Fund had a balance of $103.6 billion. This is down by $19.1 billion since December 2012. For the first eight months of 2012, the Disability Trust Fund went down by a $18.5 billion.
The report sounds bad but you have to contrast the actual results to the Chief Actuary's Intermediate projection, the one that everyone pays attention to, that the Disability Trust Fund would go down by $33.5 billion in 2013, up from $31.2 billion in 2012, a 7% increase. The increase in the shortfall is only 3% so far this year compared to the same time period last year. The Disability Trust Fund is doing better than the Intermediate projection.